July 2022 CONTENTS THEPITCHKC.COM
37 Savage Love
32
FILM
The Legend of the Prairie Punks BY ABBY OLCESE Fasten your seatbelts, and strap in for a journey back to 1979. Starting off in Wichita, we revisit the self-described “blister pop” group known as The Embarrassment and indulge in a history of reuniting and disbanding once more, along with a glimpse at live gigs, covers, and inspirations.
Judgement day BY DAN SAVAGE
38 KC CARES
KC Shepherd’s Center BY BETH LIPOFF
Letter from the Editor
Director of Marketing & Promotions Jason Dockery Assistant Editor Steph Castor Community Manager Sarah Sipple Music Editor Nick Spacek Film Editor Abby Olcese Little Village Creative Services Jordan Sellergren House Designer Miroslav Pavlovic Contributing Writers Emily Cox, Liz Cook, Barbara Shelly, Liz Goodwin, Beth Lipoff, Michael Mackie, Kristen Thomas, Kala Elkinton, Michael Cripe, Thomas White, Jordan Baranowski, Tyler Shane, Adrian Torres, Patrick Moore, Justin Burnell Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Chase Castor, Travis Young, Jim Nimmo, Chris Ortiz, Destiny Frack, Barry Meitler, Archana Sundar Contributing Designers and Illustrators Alex Peak Turley, Jake Edmisten
STROLLING THE POPMART By Brock Wilbur Hello, dear readers of The Pitch. Welcome to our new annual celebration of the auditory and sonic superstars of our city: THE MUSIC ISSUE. Jazz hands. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. And to celebrate the best and brightest of what our metro brings to the megamix of modern melodic masterpieces. We’ve got features on some of the ferocious new faces making their first marks and a deep dive into a band who may become the ur-text of what comes next for all of us. In summation, we’re fairly stoked on this mag. Growing up in smalltown Kansas, my big trips to Kansas City mostly came at the side of my father. Despite being, y’know, dad-aged, he would drive three hours both directions on a Tuesday night to sneak me into a club to catch rare Midwest performances of, say, Interpol. We only started doing these maddeningly long mid-week adventures after I found my love of music. We’d made one attempt to get me into rock music, circa the second grade. We went to Wichita to see Bon Jovi. I was, at the time, terrified of fireworks and made my family promise that no one was gonna “do fireworks at me.” The lights went down for that gorgeous former hairstylist from New Jersey, and immediately a parade of pyrotechnics blasted from every corner of the arena. I left in tears. So was sidelined any interest I had in guitars, explosions, or New Jersey. In May of 1997, a little known group of Irish lads operating under the moniker “U2” stopped through Kansas City. My dad thought he’d swing the two of us out here to watch the biggest rock band in the world do the biggest stupid rock show in the world to
Editor-in-Chief Brock Wilbur President & Chief Operating Officer Andrew Miller
Editorial Interns Emeline Hutton, Hannah Scott, Lauren Textor
U2’s PopMart Tour in May 1997. Creative Commons
a sold out Arrowhead Stadium. It broke my tiny sixth grade brain, and I went out to get a guitar the next day. I always cherish this as my breakthrough moment for live music. What I saw in a football arena that evening was not your typical greatest hits showcase that you probably see in your head. This was the PopMart tour, and nothing in modern rock will ever approximate the sheer spectacle of this event. U2 had just released an album called Pop. It was an electronic dance-club glam celebration of the excess of America, capitalism, marketing, and the increasingly thin line between religion and the almighty dollar. Much as the Rolling Stones’ disco track “Miss You” is remembered as an embarrassing outlier, Pop is an album that is so hated by U2 themselves that they will do anything in their power to make you forget it happened. But it’s still my favorite U2 album. Perhaps mostly because I know how much its existence irks them. In part because it ends with an acoustic ballad called “Wake Up Dead Man,” where the famously religious Bono begs Jesus to come fix this “fucked up world”—the only use of the F-bomb in the band’s catalog. [If anything, this is just a painfully layered cultural artifact.] The PopMart tour became what was
at the time—and still remains—the single most expensive nightly performance cost in rock history. The stage featured the largest video screen ever constructed, licensed intellectual property from pop culture (like Tomb Raider) would appear at random, and at some point the band emerged from a gigantic martini glass, wherein the olive turned into a stadium-illuminating disco ball. The entire engagement was so unreasonable that it nearly bankrupted the band. Yes, they went that big. Waxing nostalgic for the night KC taught me the greatest passion of my life, in pursuing live music to the ends of the earth, I’ve uncovered a bootleg VHS recording on YouTube of that entire show. Amid a grainy wave of pixelated crowd, I am somewhat convinced that I can see myself standing next to my father. So this is me, raising a disco ball martini to all the musicians featured in this issue. So many of them will serve as some kid’s indoctrination into the world of reverbs and abandon. I’m just thrilled knowing how many of these performers can accomplish so much more while depending on so much less. Pitch in, and we’ll make it through,
VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com
DISTRIBUTION The Pitch distributes 20,000 copies a month and is available free throughout Greater Kansas City, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 each, payable at The Pitch’s office in advance. The Pitch may be distributed only by The Pitch’s authorized independent contractors or authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of The Pitch, take more than one copy of each week’s issue. Mail subscriptions: $22.50 for six months or $45 per year, payable in advance. Application to mail at second-class postage rates is pending at Kansas City, MO 64108.
COPYRIGHT The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2022 by The Pitch LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. The Pitch 3543 Broadway Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111 For information or to share a story tip, email: tips@thepitchkc.com For advertising: andrew@thepitchkc.com or 816-218-6792
THE PITCH | July 2022 | THEPITCHKC.COM
7
